Unravling World
by tokoshie-no-sayonara
Summary: By all reasoning, we are no longer human, as humanity sees itself. Our lives are now intertwined with one another in an inescapable web of treachery and ruined lives. Together we must stand against the odds written in our very DNA to survive another day.
1. We are

This is a narrative, so it's written in first person and the reader has no idea who the main character is. It was done this way on purpose, so just deal with it.

Synopsis:

_A mutated gene, resulting from a recessive allele triggered in random second generation coordinators is all that separate the Scindogen Coordinators from their Unigen Coordinator kin. With no where else to turn, young Scindogen seek safety and are given instead an ultimatum; fight or die where they stand. These young people, thrust into a cycle of events they have yet to comprehend, may bring about revolution- or universal holocaust._

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It should be dawn. However that is relative, as there is no longer day nor night. Simply one long twilight where our effluvium of reality is burned away like mist before the rising sun.

There I go again with references to time. Sometimes I can't help but revert to the old ways of thinking. The way I thought before everything was taken. The phantom pains of an embrace that I can no longer remember haunt my ever wakeful sleep. Sometimes it is the faint brush of a cat's whiskers against my arm. Or a warm furry body curling up at the foot of my bed that I cannot displace- because it isn't there. I wish it could be so, but I, along with many others, have been sentenced to this hell from birth.

Alone in my cot I think such things. If they knew of my thoughts, I would be court marshaled and sentenced to a clandestine death. That is the penalty for such treason. But these thoughts come unbidden. And I cannot dispel them, no matter how hard I try.

Alone in my cot I stare at the steel ceiling. I'm in a steel cage- like an animal. Caged like an animal, though they say that it is for my own protection. But they're killing me. Keeping my memories caged in steel till I choke on my own past or accept the future that is offered

Not everyone is in a steel room like me. No, it is only those of us who have not surrendered. Every day there are fewer in the solitary confinement rooms. They've been moved to the barracks, with the good soldiers.

I don't know how long I've been here. My distinctions between present and past have been muddied, and I feel drowsy and disoriented more with each moment between sleep and wakefulness. The food is drugged, I bet. Or perhaps the very air itself is poisoned. Or more likely yet, it's my own emotions slowly killing me. They want to break down our barriers and take control. They want to rape our minds and leave us dead on the inside.

Every 60 minutes, every 3600 seconds, someone comes by and looks through the small window in the steel door. First I hear the footsteps, telling me to close my eyes and feign an obedient sleep.Then the metal flap is lifted; it still needs to be oiled. I can't say if it is the same pair of eyes peering at me through that small window, but I can always feel their heavy gaze fall on me as I lay prostrate. In the beginning, I trembled beneath the thin blanket, afraid of what would come to be should they find me awake. Now my fear is checked and only my mind quails in fear.

As mankind delved into sciences better left to nature and all her wisdom, a flaw was created. There is a recessive trait in all first generation coordinators. However as second generation coordinators were born, it was found that this recessive trait was triggered by a special RNA code and mutated into a dominant allele.

Like a game of chance, this gene, while it may have become dominant, remained inactivated in many. However some of us were born with the activated gene. We are known as the Scindogen. And this is our story.


	2. The Makings of War

Synopsis:

_A mutated gene, resulting from a recessive allele triggered in random second generation coordinators is all that separate the Scindogen Coordinators from their Unigen Coordinator kin. With no where else to turn, young Scindogen seek safety and are given instead an ultimatum: fight or die where they stand. These young people, thrust into a cycle of events they have yet to comprehend, may bring about revolution or universal holocaust._

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Whispers, fluttering like the wings of a dove are passed between us. We are birds. Our wings clipped. Our freedom taken. We speak a language of silent lips and shifted eyes. Eventually our new tongue will be discovered, and we will then be one hope less. But now we are still able to communicate as we pass, head lowered and eyes straining to the side.

Only two of us are allowed out at a time to the lavatory, and even there we have no privacy. Passing each other- one returning and one leaving- we move our lips and form wraithlike messages in our own nacreous language.

In C.E 70, when I was only fifteen, they discovered it. The Forstein Gene. Named after Dr. A. L. Forstein. The man who discovered the recessive trait in first generation Coordinators. Studies have discovered that the bodies of Natural women combated the foreign structure of the implanted coordinator fetus. The mother's body triggered chemical changes in the womb as it tried to assess and alter the fetus.

That was the reason for a strange number of miscarriages in the early days of coordinators. The body simply rejected the fetus as something foreign. While many died, many more were born and brought to maturity- with no knowledge of what slept in their genetic makeup.

Then my generation was born. Somehow the trait was triggered in first generation Coordinator women during pregnancy. Perhaps the imbalance of hormones, or the new stress put upon the body. I really don't know. But chemicals activated in pregnancy did something to our volatile genes as we were formed. Altered, mutated, changed, corrected.

And we were born with it. That one gene, that one insignificant trait, altered us entirely.

F1053, the new girl in the 'cell' next to me, said that something happened. Something terrible. But she quickly passed and returned to her cell, her message unfinished. Now, as I lay on my cot, I can only wonder. Something terrible. Her eyes had darted upwards- not down. That meant something terrible happened at PLANT. No matter the point of reference. Even in space, upwards meant PLANT. Down meant earth. How ironic... like heaven and hell. No, not ironic. Not even coincidental. The PLANT was created to be a heaven for those who wished to leave Hell. That was simply the way it was.

PLANT was once my home. But oddly, I don't seem to care as I should. All connections to 'home' have been burned away. The word remains like a dead husk. The connotations of warmth and family stripped from it. Home is simply a place of residence. This base is now my home.

My thoughts always drift. Now they haunt that day when everything changed. There were rallies, no, mobs in many of the colonies. They protested our existence. Yes, the Coordinators were now the ones to protest. When ever something superior stumbles towards the light, still afraid and naked and covered in birth blood, those now considered obsolete become afraid. Fear, it is what is driving this war. The Naturals were afraid of becoming obsolete, and lashed out at the Coordinators.

Now the Coordinators fear us- the Scindogen- the divided race. Humanity walks such a foolishly cyclical path.

By all reasoning, we are no longer humans, as humanity sees itself. The Homo Sapien branch has fractured once again. Years ago it split to facilitate Coordinators and Naturals. Now the Coordinator branch has split into Scindogen and Unigen Coordinators.

The Unigen were, in essence, the prototype for us. They proved ineffective and therefore our superiority complex was triggered. A set of related feelings, ideas, or impulses that may be repressed but that continues to influence thoughts and behavior that make us physically and mentally superior. Or so we have been told. Part of me resists this idea. Ever since I was young, I was indoctrinated into the mindset that Coordinators were superior to all else. Our empire stretches from earth to the stars, our technology would make many a natural head spin, our very genetic structure is a wonder of science. Or so we have been told. There is no universal truth. Words spoken become tainted by the speaker and print becomes influenced by the typist. No words can be trusted other than your own. And even your truths are influenced by your Freudian skeletons.

Religion. The greatest mistake and the greatest accomplishment of man. Religion is something that has been abandoned by many Coordinators. To them, God has been proven inaccurate and uneeded. That is only to be expected. We are children of _science; t_hat_ w_hich allows man to take God's power in their hands and do with it what they may. However there are still some who cannot deny their beliefs, and for that, they have been shunned from PLANT.

The discovery of a sub-race of Coordinators sparked fear in PLANT. Anyone of any religion found themselves facing hostilities from fearful citizens who were beginning to grow paranoid and strike out at anyone who didn't fit the mould. It is one of the great ironies of the century. A people who were once the paladins of the repressed became like their oppressors. That proved Coordinators human. They were making the same mistakes and giving into basic human instinct- fear.

But the government was our friend. They found us and took us somewhere we could be safe.

Safety was relative. The military praised us for our abilities and quickly took us under their wing and rifle. That is where we are. In a wing at a military base, built special for us. No one from the outside is allowed into the Scindogen Wing. It is possible that the Unigen fear us. But we are their greatest asset.

Our uniforms are like the inverse of the elite's crimson. The jackets are black as space. If only I could see that endless expanse one more time. Stiff shoulders, trim, and large cuffs are made of dark crimson, always appearing as if blood is perpetually dripping from us and our morbidly hued uniforms. It suits our young race, whose birth blood of innocence has yet to be washed away by time. I feel I am an aborted fetus- hated before I had a chance to live. We are the children of a botched abortion. Old enough to survive though too young to exist on our own. However I digress.The same silver belt sits just above the waist, giving us at least something in common with the others. For the females like myself, we have a white pleated miniskirt that reaches just above mid-thigh. Durable grey nylons pulled to mid-thigh strike a contrast with the inverse of the white, black toed and heeled boots worn by the Unigen elites. Our boots are dark ebony with white soles and a white stripe up the toes. Like those worn by the officers.

I've seen some of the officers before. Just fleeting glimpses. They wear white. How ironic, or perhaps coincidental. They wear a holy color, and yet their duty is to kill. If God exists, I suppose that he gets a laugh out of that... of course that all depends if he's the humorous type. Obviously he can't mind too much, as he hasn't appeared to smite them yet. Smite. What an archaic term. A transitive verb meaning to affect somebody strongly or disastrously, or afflict somebody with something. I would very much like to smite some people. But I keep my obedient silence. No, that was stated incorrectly. It is a silence of self-preservation. Our existence depends on self-preservation.

Because of how the Unigen treat us, it is now our sacred duty to survive and continue on. We will lower our heads and act as the right arm of the military, who is in essence the right arm of the government. These institutions have an endless number of other agencies acting where they cannot. The government alone cannot stand. It needs the security agencies, the military and social agencies to keep the people at peace. Likewise, the military cannot function without the intelligence agencies, and us. The Scindogen. Their greatest asset. We do the dirty work of the military and her associates. We wear the uniform to give us legitimacy. But when this war is over, I doubt that the Unigen will remember our contributions.

After the war between the Naturals and Unigen Coordinators is over, I can foresee nothing but more war and hatred. This time it are the Coordinators who will be ripped in two by civil war.


	3. Tapetum reflections

**_Little hint to the ending_:** It's almost as if the character is speaking to you, isn't it? Muha...

Synopsis:

_A mutated gene, resulting from a recessive allele triggered in random second generation coordinators is all that separate the Scindogen Coordinators from their Unigen Coordinator kin. With no where else to turn, young Scindogen seek safety and are given instead an ultimatum: fight or die where they stand. These young people, thrust into a cycle of events they have yet to comprehend, may bring about revolution or universal holocaust._

This isn't really like a chapter. It's just something to link the intro to the rest of the fic. Consider it a bridge. 3

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My silence has bought me a room in the barracks with the other good soldiers. I have a window now. It is too small for a body to fit through, in case someone grew too desperate. The three-story fall from my window would be an act of utter desperation. To combat these feelings, we are 'soothed' by spartan furnishings and stark walls. Like the mental health ward at a sanatorium. I like that word- sanatorium. We are the residents of the ZAFT sanatorium. Our illness is one that cannot be cured.

A mirror.

What a simple desire.

Yet...

Only the glossy white linoleum sea at my feet offers distorted glimpses. Glimpses of my flaws. Of my illness.

As a child I used to be fascinated with my eyes. I would sit and stare into a mirror for hours, watching how the unique tapetum membrane reflected as an eerie green sheen across my pupils. Much like a cat's eyes when caught passing between the realms of light and shadow. A creature of the night that is able to walk in the light- that it what I am. As I have learned since my days of peering into my mother's antique mirror, this trait is not something to be admired. Rather, it is something to be feared and hated.

Everyone in the Scindogen barracks has either bright blue or green tapeta. I assume that the Unigen living on the base have stories about catching frightening glimpses of irredescent orbs staring back at them from behind the double-paned windows of the Scindogen 'ward'. Sometimes I want to speak with the Unigen. Say, 'don't be frightened! It's just a reflective membrane behind our retina!' Because the reflected light from the tapetum can cause the images to appear blurry, we have an excess number of receptor cells in our eyes to decipher the blurred images, so therefore our eyes are much more acute than even a Unigen. That only makes sense.

Coordinators were made to be superior to Naturals. As we exist to be superior to the original Unigen Coordinators. Everyone can see how readily the Naturals accepted beings superior unto them... the Scindogen were accepted by the Unigen in a similar matter. As I've stated earlier, humanity walks a cyclical path.

Through these distorted eyes of mine I've seen many things. I've seen human pride and ignorance and hatred. I've seen human humility and compassion and love. I've seen the truth and lies of our time. I've seen life through the eyes of a Scindogen.


	4. Night of Mist and Shadows

_**Synopsis:**_

_A mutated gene, resulting from a recessive allele triggered in random second generation coordinators is all that separate the Scindogen Coordinators from their Unigen Coordinator kin. With no where else to turn, young Scindogen seek safety and are given instead an ultimatum: fight or die where they stand. These young people, thrust into a cycle of events they have yet to comprehend, may bring about revolution or universal holocaust._

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* * *

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_Through these distorted eyes of mine I've seen many things. I've seen human pride and ignorance and hatred. I've seen human humility and compassion and love. I've seen the truth and lies of our time. I've seen life through the eyes of a Scindogen._

My name is Jahel Chayah Nadab. My name is irrelevent. My identity is F1079. I exist only as a number taken flesh. Should my flesh fail I will be returned to the database and given seven new identities; oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorous and waste. ZAFT is a more efficient military machine than many think. When this whirlwind of death that I now spin precariously in first began, I was apalled by how easily myself and the rest of the nation had been fooled. We all sat at home, content to watch things flash by on our televisions, blissfully ignorant to the monster that was silently spreading tentacles of awareness across one colony after another.

Aprilius was the first to fall. As if by the hand of God, we are all struck deaf and dumb in our homes.

The lights on the street went out; one by one. Then the hallway light blinked off. I recall my mother, a tall, noble woman whose face is blurred in my memory, walking to a darkened window. Even though her face it lost to me, her posture was one of defeat. As I crept out of the darkened hallway towards her, still in my Lacus Clyne pajamas, I heard a soft sound that made me pause. Sleep weary eyes locked onto the ventilation grate on the ceiling a few paces before me. Too many horror films had axe murderers and assassins crawling out of ventilation shafts. The fact that I had been out earlier to see such a film made my heart leap to my throat. Vividly I can still recall the hot adrenaline waking every nerve and muscle.

Something plinked to the floor. Cautiously I kneeled down to investigate. I rolled the cool metal between my fingers, then brought it to my face. It was- a screw? My head whipped back to stare wide-eyed at the vent. Like a frightened animal I crept back into the darkened hallway. When I finally felt the cool shadows envelop my face I tore my gaze from the vent. I uncurled my fingers and peered at the ominous screw.

There was a thud to my right that sent the hairs on the back of my neck on end. It was a metal sphere, glossy and... ticking. My mind whirled. What ticked? Bombs ticked! My body sprang to action before my mind had a chance to register what had happened. I skidded into the living room, dashing towards my mother as fast as I could. Adrenaline coursed through my veins and thrummed behind my eyes. We had to get out! A coffee table thrust itself infront of me, ramming my knees with such force that I crumpled atop the table like a limp doll. Behind me the ticking stopped.

Biting back the pain in my legs I pushed myself up on our Queen Anne coffee table. I looked back at the metal sphere. It cracked in half. From the crack a small stream of pale colored gas plumed. My first reaction was relief that it wasn't a bomb. Not caring how the table had moved itself to block my path, I jetissoned myself towards my mother, who remained impassive at the window. Searing pain lanced through my left knee as I strained towards my mother and her blurred face. All I could see were her ebony curls and a faint reflection in the window. Behind me the steady hiss of the sphere grew louder, but I refused to look back. The lights on the endtables blinked off. I turned, my panic mounting. Out of the coner of my eye I saw only darkness where the sphere was. But in that darkness I knew plumes of gas hung like deadly aerosol clouds. The only light in the house was now by my mother. It was the only place I could go. It was- as I limped closer the reflection came into focus. Despite the darkness I could clearly make out a face. A man's face.

My feet sprout roots. I turned to run, even if it was into the effluvial trap, I just wanted to run. Mother stood impassive. She couldn't escape. But I could, I just had to run! My wrists were suddenly yanked foreward and I plunged into the darkness. The odorless mist swirled around me as I fell. I remember the clammy dew it formed on my skin, how it clung to my hair and how it burned my tongue. My eyes squeezed shut as I continued to fall. Beyond my floor and beyond my consciousness I fell.

My head was filled with the mist. It swamped my thoughts and filled my ears with a steady droning. My tongue felt swollen, and my throat burned. I fell. I don't know for how long, but it seems as though I fell for an eternity. Through darkness and mist. When consciousness slammed me to the floor of my living room I couldn't open my eyes. I couldn't breath. I couldn't speak. The wood beneath me was clammy with dew that soaked through my thin pajamas. I felt... Even though my skin was numb I could feel pressure on the bridge of my nose. My eyelids fluttered open involuntarily. The darkness burned my eyes like daylight. A sun passed before my eyes. My distorted eyes.

There were shapes beyond me, shapes I couldn't quite distinguish. Blinking rapidly I dispelled whatever ill effect the mist had on my eyes. The shapes became faces and bulky bodies. Mother! I could make out her shape. It was the farthest away. The man from the window was beside her, speaking though it didn't seem she could hear him. She didn't look at me, though I was laid flat on the floor in clear view.

I felt weightless. My mind sluggishly realized that I had been lifted from the floor and was now being carried by one of the black shapes. My head lolled to the side. Mother was still by the window. Her shoulders twitched and she crumpled to her knees. She curled into herself, her blurred face hidden from me. The black shape carried me through the black door and into the yard. I could feel the wind on my face and my exposed arms. A black shape crowded our small backyard. Its dimensions were lost in the shadows. But even if it had been exposed, I would not have recognized the SR-Wraith. It doesn't even exist. At least that is the official statement.

I felt more than heard the pneumatic door slide open. From one shape to another I was passed. Someone came foreward and placed a cloth over my nose and mouth. I tried to jerk my head away, but in my numbed state, all I succeeded in doing was lolling my head to the side. As my body was laid out an insufficiently padded cot of some sort I felt whatever had been on the cloth begin to take effect. As my eyes drooped I felt thick leather straps being pulled tight across my body, my neck, and my wrists. I wasn't even conscious when we left my house. It's sad really.


End file.
